Taxes-how many are self employed?

[Oddball]

They don't know...But they, somehow or another, know how to run your business finances.

 

[The Rabbi]

If you have your life savings all tied up in your business it isn't a business, it's a hobby.

Are you really this stupid?

If his businesses are producing $200-300k in income for him then I wouldn't call that a hobby.

Smarter to not have over $800,000 of your personal income tied up in a business. If you need to do that you are doing something wrong.

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Gadawg73]

No offense, but that is a stupid way to run a business.

And how exactly were you able to determine this from the information given?

If you have your life savings all tied up in your business it isn't a business, it's a hobby.

You have no clue how hard it is to run a business. My detective agency certainly is no hobby.

If taxes were not so high on small business then I would not have to put so much of my savings into making sure others are employed.

A simple thank you to your employer would be sufficient.

The fact that most of you do not have a clue that the profits my businesses make ARE MY $. Who else other than me has equity in MY business?
Ignorance about a corporation is rampant in America. NONE of my businesses pays ONE CENT IN TAXES.
I pay the taxes. People, NOT CORPORATIONS, always pay the taxes.

 

[Ravi]

And how exactly were you able to determine this from the information given?

If you have your life savings all tied up in your business it isn't a business, it's a hobby.

You have no clue how hard it is to run a business. My detective agency certainly is no hobby.

If taxes were not so high on small business then I would not have to put so much of my savings into making sure others are employed.

A simple thank you to your employer would be sufficient.

The fact that most of you do not have a clue that the profits my businesses make ARE MY $. Who else other than me has equity in MY business?
Ignorance about a corporation is rampant in America. NONE of my businesses pays ONE CENT IN TAXES.
I pay the taxes. People, NOT CORPORATIONS, always pay the taxes.

If you say so...I think you're an idiot with no idea of how to be profitable. Good luck to you.

 

[American Horse]

How many are self employed and have their life savings at risk daily running their businesses?
How much do you have at risk in your business?
I have $500,000.00 in savings invested in one of my businesses and $300,000.00 in another. This represents 95% of my life savings and I am 55. Add in another $225,000.00 in loans and I have over a million bucks AT RISK.
I will explain the tax implications later and how they dramatically affect the lifeblood of this country, the small business person.

At 51 (in 1992) I borrowed $390K to start a new residential land development which I knew offered limited sales activity and profit (because of a far west side location) from which to amortize the loan. That figure doesn’t sound like much, but we were just coming out of the 90-91 recession. Those were 8% interest rates for commercial loans back then. This opened up 12 new lots and financed another 30 raw acres from which I could eventually develop another 35 lots which would require more financing for more “infrastructure:” Roads, sewer/water lines/ sidewalks, drainage systems including a hefty share of land to be dedicated for storm-water retention. Too many people think that the government builds the entire above list of infrastructure; It does not; the developer does, and “dedicates them to the public,” and hence to the local government for property tax and other revenues (sewer/water), and perpetual maintenance.

This type project was typical of my projects during the previous 20 years - including developing "far west side" locations - so I knew what I could expect in the way of sales. You only need to divide the initial loan, which would not be the last needed, to see how daunting the whole project seemed on the day I signed the loan papers. Back then development loans of this type could not exceed 75% Loan-To-Value ratio for the project, and had to represent no more than 50% of personal net worth on a financial statement. This was required in accordance with Federal regulations.

I finished the project in 2006 (at 65) with a couple of unsold lots and a little acreage left over to help add to our savings and Social Security for retirement. I couldn't end it soon enough to suit me. I benefited from the Bush capital gains tax cuts at the end, making it a better situation for us to sell the balance of more or less fully approved and engineered lots as “raw land” to someone else to finish and to build on so we could secure the lowest tax rates.

Developers who build on their own lots have to treat the income as "earned income" paying the full load of taxes including 15% self employment taxes on the gain on the lots as well as the profit on the improvements. Fair enough. I sold the last 11 lots to a young novice "developer" at, in the opinion of others, a ridiculously low price to get out just when our "west side location" came into its own at the completion of a new 4-lane highway connecting it to the central urban core.

The combination of the big three, taxes, interest, and regulations, created a feeling of being on the back of a tiger from which, at any given time, it was too dangerous to get off.

At the very last EPA Federal Regulations being enforced by state agency (IDEM) were decisive, as any dry ditch became a part of the "Waters of Indiana," a state regulation in lieu of the EPA doing the regulating directly, with heavy new costs implied for land development. It's all fine, but income from the marginal profit (after marginal tax rates) just won't support it.

For the independent business person to understand the tax system (and the regs that apply to them) is absolutely a necessary part, not just of success, but of financial survival.

 

[Gadawg73]

No offense, but that is a stupid way to run a business.

How would you know?
Do you know how I run my businesses or what businesses I own?
What is a smart way to run a business?
What small business do you run?
I have been at it for over 30 years.

If true, you shouldn't need to have all of your life savings tied up in it. My business has none of my personal savings in it...it is self-sustaining and turns a lovely profit.

My businesses also turn a "lovely profit".
You have no equity in your business?
Don't you know that equity is YOUR $ invested in your business?
ALL the $, corporate or not, IS your personal savings if it is YOUR business.

 

[Ravi]

How would you know?
Do you know how I run my businesses or what businesses I own?
What is a smart way to run a business?
What small business do you run?
I have been at it for over 30 years.

If true, you shouldn't need to have all of your life savings tied up in it. My business has none of my personal savings in it...it is self-sustaining and turns a lovely profit.

My businesses also turn a "lovely profit".
You have no equity in your business?
Don't you know that equity is YOUR $ invested in your business?
ALL the $, corporate or not, IS your personal savings if it is YOUR business.

Nope. We started out with $10,000. My personal savings and my business savings are separate. If the company goes down the tubes it can't hurt me. If it continues to thrive it simply makes me even more money.

 

[Gadawg73]

If you have your life savings all tied up in your business it isn't a business, it's a hobby.

You have no clue how hard it is to run a business. My detective agency certainly is no hobby.

If taxes were not so high on small business then I would not have to put so much of my savings into making sure others are employed.

A simple thank you to your employer would be sufficient.

The fact that most of you do not have a clue that the profits my businesses make ARE MY $. Who else other than me has equity in MY business?
Ignorance about a corporation is rampant in America. NONE of my businesses pays ONE CENT IN TAXES.
I pay the taxes. People, NOT CORPORATIONS, always pay the taxes.

If you say so...I think you're an idiot with no idea of how to be profitable. Good luck to you.

"No idea to be profitable"
My 3 businesses make an extremely large profit for 30 years. My ROE is three times the industry averages. Do I need to explain ROE to you also?
I travel the world on those profits hunting, fishing and sight seeing and they also allow me time to educate you on economics.

 

[blastoff]

You are obviously "wealthy" and your wealth needs to be redistributed and spread around. Fortunately Obama is going to help you with that. On the bright side you won't have to worry about putting gas in your car no more or making your mortgage payment.

Got a link to where Obama plans to confiscate wealth and redistribute it?

Don't need no stinking link. We all heard him tell Joe the plumber he wanted to spread it around. In order to spread he's gotta take from some and give to others, in a Robin Hood sort of way.

 

[Gadawg73]

If true, you shouldn't need to have all of your life savings tied up in it. My business has none of my personal savings in it...it is self-sustaining and turns a lovely profit.

My businesses also turn a "lovely profit".
You have no equity in your business?
Don't you know that equity is YOUR $ invested in your business?
ALL the $, corporate or not, IS your personal savings if it is YOUR business.

Nope. We started out with $10,000. My personal savings and my business savings are separate. If the company goes down the tubes it can't hurt me. If it continues to thrive it simply makes me even more money.

Dumb ass, if you own the company the business savings are not seperate. Retained earnings are YOUR $.
They are in your mind but not as collateral with the banks. YOU are the business if you own it. You can not get a business loan in this market UNLESS you sign as the personal guarantor also. Where did you get your BBA at?

 

[Ravi]

You have no clue how hard it is to run a business. My detective agency certainly is no hobby.

If taxes were not so high on small business then I would not have to put so much of my savings into making sure others are employed.

A simple thank you to your employer would be sufficient.

The fact that most of you do not have a clue that the profits my businesses make ARE MY $. Who else other than me has equity in MY business?
Ignorance about a corporation is rampant in America. NONE of my businesses pays ONE CENT IN TAXES.
I pay the taxes. People, NOT CORPORATIONS, always pay the taxes.

If you say so...I think you're an idiot with no idea of how to be profitable. Good luck to you.

"No idea to be profitable"
My 3 businesses make an extremely large profit for 30 years. My ROE is three times the industry averages. Do I need to explain ROE to you also?
I travel the world on those profits hunting, fishing and sight seeing and they also allow me time to educate you on economics.

In other words, you're bitching about nothing. Phony asshole.

 

[Gadawg73]

How many are self employed and have their life savings at risk daily running their businesses?
How much do you have at risk in your business?
I have $500,000.00 in savings invested in one of my businesses and $300,000.00 in another. This represents 95% of my life savings and I am 55. Add in another $225,000.00 in loans and I have over a million bucks AT RISK.
I will explain the tax implications later and how they dramatically affect the lifeblood of this country, the small business person.

At 51 (in 1992) I borrowed $390K to start a new residential land development which I knew offered limited sales activity and profit (because of a far west side location) from which to amortize the loan. That figure doesn’t sound like much, but we were just coming out of the 90-91 recession. Those were 8% interest rates for commercial loans back then. This opened up 12 new lots and financed another 30 raw acres from which I could eventually develop another 35 lots which would require more financing for more “infrastructure:” Roads, sewer/water lines/ sidewalks, drainage systems including a hefty share of land to be dedicated for storm-water retention. Too many people think that the government builds the entire above list of infrastructure; It does not; the developer does, and “dedicates them to the public,” and hence to the local government for property tax and other revenues (sewer/water), and perpetual maintenance.

This type project was typical of my projects during the previous 20 years - including developing "far west side" locations - so I knew what I could expect in the way of sales. You only need to divide the initial loan, which would not be the last needed, to see how daunting the whole project seemed on the day I signed the loan papers. Back then development loans of this type could not exceed 75% Loan-To-Value ratio for the project, and had to represent no more than 50% of personal net worth on a financial statement. This was required in accordance with Federal regulations.

I finished the project in 2006 (at 65) with a couple of unsold lots and a little acreage left over to help add to our savings and Social Security for retirement. I couldn't end it soon enough to suit me. I benefited from the Bush capital gains tax cuts at the end, making it a better situation for us to sell the balance of more or less fully approved and engineered lots as “raw land” to someone else to finish and to build on so we could secure the lowest tax rates.

Developers who build on their own lots have to treat the income as "earned income" paying the full load of taxes including 15% self employment taxes on the gain on the lots as well as the profit on the improvements. Fair enough. I sold the last 11 lots to a young novice "developer" at, in the opinion of others, a ridiculously low price to get out just when our "west side location" came into its own at the completion of a new 4-lane highway connecting it to the central urban core.

The combination of the big three, taxes, interest, and regulations, created a feeling of being on the back of a tiger from which, at any given time, it was too dangerous to get off.

At the very last EPA Federal Regulations being enforced by state agency (IDEM) were decisive, as any dry ditch became a part of the "Waters of Indiana," a state regulation in lieu of the EPA doing the regulating directly, with heavy new costs implied for land development. It's all fine, but income from the marginal profit (after marginal tax rates) just won't support it.

For the independent business person to understand the tax system (and the regs that apply to them) is absolutely a necessary part, not just of success, but of financial survival.

One of my businesses does the same thing. Good post.

 

[Gadawg73]

If you say so...I think you're an idiot with no idea of how to be profitable. Good luck to you.

"No idea to be profitable"
My 3 businesses make an extremely large profit for 30 years. My ROE is three times the industry averages. Do I need to explain ROE to you also?
I travel the world on those profits hunting, fishing and sight seeing and they also allow me time to educate you on economics.

In other words, you're bitching about nothing. Phony asshole.

Good to see that you have given up and now agree with me.
Took a little time but I thought you may admit and come around.
Wham it zero on set.

 

[boedicca]

You are obviously "wealthy" and your wealth needs to be redistributed and spread around. Fortunately Obama is going to help you with that. On the bright side you won't have to worry about putting gas in your car no more or making your mortgage payment.

Got a link to where Obama plans to confiscate wealth and redistribute it?

Here's one way:


House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.
Comments 0 | Recommend 0
October 16, 2008
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks
Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-California, and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, contains elements that are being considered. She testified last week before Miller’s Education and Labor Committee on her proposal.

At that hearing, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.

Under Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5 percent of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3 percent a year, adjusted for inflation.

The current system of providing tax breaks on 401(k) contributions and earnings would be eliminated.

“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.” ...

House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks | workforce.com

 

[boedicca]

Business owners get a hell of a lot more deductions and write-offs than W-2 people.

So quit yer bitchin'.

Don't be angry at us business owners because we're smarter than you W2 wage slaves.

I bet it really gets your goat that a business owner is able to write off a lot of personal expenses doesn't it.

For example I can't remember the last time I paid for coffee, or paper towels or many other household items. I even have the business pay my heating bills so I can write them off. And not to mention that I get to avoid Social Security taxes on a large part of my income.

It's good to be a business owner.

Yep, that's why the OP should stop bitching...seemed rather clear to me what he meant.

Considering that people like the OP are responsible for most new job creation in the U.S. - and the fact that there is virtually No Private Sector Job Creation in this anemic recovery, understanding how taxes are affecting such small business people is quite useful.

Instead of just attacking him because he has more money than you do, how about learning something?

 

[Ravi]

Don't be angry at us business owners because we're smarter than you W2 wage slaves.

I bet it really gets your goat that a business owner is able to write off a lot of personal expenses doesn't it.

For example I can't remember the last time I paid for coffee, or paper towels or many other household items. I even have the business pay my heating bills so I can write them off. And not to mention that I get to avoid Social Security taxes on a large part of my income.

It's good to be a business owner.

Yep, that's why the OP should stop bitching...seemed rather clear to me what he meant.

Considering that people like the OP are responsible for most new job creation in the U.S. - and the fact that there is virtually No Private Sector Job Creation in this anemic recovery, understanding how taxes are affecting such small business people is quite useful.

Instead of just attacking him because he has more money than you do, how about learning something?

He's doing nothing but whining...nothing to be learned from him other than he's a blowhard and a phony.

 

[boedicca]

All you are doing is proving that you have a closed mind.

 

[The Rabbi]

All you are doing is proving that you have a closed mind.

And that he's grossly ignorant of how businesses work and how money is made.

 

[Mr Natural]

Business owners get a hell of a lot more deductions and write-offs than W-2 people.

So quit yer bitchin'.

Ever heard of business expenses?
What are they and why should I pay taxes on those?
What small business do you own?
And where was I "bitchin"?

You're joking, right? This whole thread is one big bitchfest.


Yeah, it sucks that we have to pay taxes. But as a business owner, you have a whole world of options available to you that your employees don't. Example: lease a car, tax write off. Have an office at home, write off part of your mortgage, property taxes, insurances, and utilities. Take business trip that just happens top coincide with a visit to the in-laws, tax write off.

I could go on and on. And I hope that as a smart businessman you are taking advantage of every benefit of business ownership that's available to you. Otherwise, what's the point?

 

[Ravi]

Ever heard of business expenses?
What are they and why should I pay taxes on those?

lol! I missed that...why should you pay taxes on business expenses...you dimwit...you don't.